Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele on Friday allowed a long-term management and funding deal for the War Memorial and Milwaukee Art Museum to go into effect without carrying out his promised veto.

Abele said he was returning the legislation unsigned because he couldn't OK it "in good conscience. ... It puts Milwaukee County on a less sustainable path and unnecessarily spends tax dollars," Abele said in a letter to the board. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Article(9)

Anchor-reporter Shari Dunn has filed a complaint against her employers, Weigel Broadcasting and WDJT-TV (Channel 58), alleging "a possible pattern and practice of paying female employees less than male employees."

The complaint alleges that Weigel provides more high-profile opportunities for men and that it has created "a culture where the opinions of male employees are valued more than the opinions of female employees." | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(29)

The "In Living Color Comedy Tour," based on the ground-breaking TV sketch comedy that ran from 1990 to 1994, will feature cast members David Alan Grier and Tommy Davidson in two performances in October at Potawatomi Bingo Casino, 1721 W. Canal St.

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher John Axford may have been traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, but the $25,000 personal donation he made to the festival will live on at this year's event, which runs Sept. 26 through Oct. 10.

Axford's donation went toward support of the Cream City Cinema program for local films and filmmakers. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(1)

Margaret Atwood and I go way back. The first paper I presented at an academic conference in the mid-'80s was a feminist critique of voice in "The Handmaid's Tale" (don't yawn). Since then I've followed Atwood and her writing closely (we've both come a long way). I've relished her fiction's speculative stance on everything from religious fundamentalism to patriarchal politics and her satires on romantic love and historical romanticism. She's a writer with vision and a woman to admire.

But with "MaddAddam," the ponderous conclusion of her dystopian trilogy started in "Oryx and Crake" (2003), Atwood has lost me. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Article

Milwaukee Opera Theatre, which loves to give new works their start in the world, will present concert readings of the new musical "Victory for Victoria" this weekend.

The show is a fictionalized version of the life of Victoria Woodhull, who became the first woman to run for president of the United States, in 1872. Local music-theater performers Susan Peterson Holmes and Peggy Peterson Ryan wrote the book and lyrics; Alissa Rhode composed the music. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Article

Ring Lardner didn't just find humanity in the world of sport. He found the voice of mainstream America, and got people to listen to it.

Lardner, who died of a heart attack 80 years ago this month at the age of 48, was one of the most widely read writers of the 1920s and '30s, a humorist whose work earned a range of admirers from H.L. Mencken to Virginia Woolf. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Article

Unlike many biennials, the Haggerty Museum of Art’s “Current Tendencies” is not one to overstate its case.

The upcoming Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art may rightly be described as one of the most prestigious showcases of contemporary art in the state, and the Mary L. Nohl Exhibition employs a rigorous application process designed to identify exceptional and rigorous artists. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(2)

Late in Edwidge Danticat's "Claire of the Sea Light" — a novel comprised of eight connected stories — an illiterate fisherman living in Haiti learns from his wife that he'll soon be a father. "How," the delighted man asks her, "do you tell someone you're pregnant in a funeral parlor?"

Nozias Faustin's question is both literal and humorous: Claire Faustin works for an undertaker, and she gives Nozias the good news while on duty. But Nozias' ostensibly simple question also raises a metaphorical and tragic one: How does one carry on, in that charnel house called Haiti where Danticat was born? | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Article

As its imperative title suggests, Larry Watson's "Let Him Go" is a novel headed from the get-go for a showdown at some not-OK corral. And while it offers readers almost enough sheriffs for a posse, the book's indomitable opponents are two rural grandmothers vying for control of a 4-year-old child.

Watson, a Marquette University professor since 2003, taught for many years at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point before that. He's a North Dakota native, though, and his fiction is often set in the sparsely populated states west of us, including his signature novel "Montana 1948." His fictional time is the postwar 1940s and '50s, which he told me in a previous interview was an era of "conflict between what people wanted and what society said they could have." It's country, particularly in this book, where people have little but will fight like badgers for what they want. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Article

Well, local artist Miranda Levy held her own on "Project Runway" for seven episodes. But after a few too many pencil skirts, self-described "nerdy" looks and bossy rants in weeks past, Miranda was deemed "out" on Thursday's episode.

Last night's challenge was to create a look around that most evocative of accessories -- shoes! | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

Ivory char is served with parsnip-potato puree, king trumpet mushrooms and sherry brown butter recently at Harbor House.

Maybe you've noticed a new fish in town. Wisconsin ivory char popped up in specials in August at Harbor House in Milwaukee and at Sebastian's in Caledonia.

Actually, it's a new name, but the fish raised by Aqua Terra Farms of Bristol is arctic char; it's being marketed as ivory char because the flesh is paler than the typical ruddy flesh of arctic char. Aqua Terra's fish also is sold locally as arctic char at Empire Fish, the Wauwatosa wholesaler and retail shop. | Aug. 30, 2013»Read Full Article